Parkz News Great ride, great theming, confusing operations: Leviathan wooden roller coaster opens at Sea World

[Parkz News]

Great ride, great theming, confusing operations: Leviathan wooden roller coaster opens at Sea World

After delays of biblical proportions, Leviathan, the centrepiece of the $50-million New Atlantis themed area at Sea World, has finally opened to the public. Does the ride live up to years of hype?

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[Guest 239]

Excellent article. I agree with pretty much all of the praise and criticisms. It was also nice to get some of that classic Parkz sass that reminded me of the old Dreamworld trip report days. Great work @Richard.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Great article. 

Quote

It is without a doubt the best-designed roller coaster we've ever seen in Australia. Impeccably paced, perfectly engineered and fits the brief perfectly: a thoroughly enjoyable family thrill ride. It won't top anyone's list for intensity or outright thrills, and other Gold Coast roller coasters have more singular standout thrills, but the entirety of Leviathan is as near to flawless as anything we've ever seen in this country.

I've been struggling since Friday to answer questions asked by family and friends. "How was it?" "was it better than <insert other local coaster here>" and this sums it up for me fairly well - I couldn't agree more.

As for capacity, I think you've hit the nail on the head - The show elements are awesome, but there isn't enough time to enjoy it either. And Backwards, which pays a premium, faces a blank white shed. The first two times I rode it backwards, and honestly I wasn't really aware of the show at all as I was rushed through the station.

[joz]

It's really tough because the show elements are actually properly awesome, well designed, well executed and yeah.. just all round awesome. In one train operation you could run that animation when the train is out of the station and might actually end up increasing capacity. A ride with no seatbelts and air gates really should be getting 600people through an hour, whereas I think what they were actually doing was only jist crackong 200. I think it'll be one of those things like Space Probe's queue where you go 'Oh yeah when they opened it it was like really loud in there and it was only ever one group at a time! It was awesome but totally impractical. You'd think the setup for Leviathan will have to change.

Edited December 7, 2022 by joz

[New display name]

Maybe they can have 2 versions of the show.  On slow days you see the whole show and when it is busy, it goes on a loop.

[Rivals]

I think with how it’s set up now, the best they could do is release the next group of riders into the caves as the trains dispatching, not as the trains halfway up the lift. By the time the guests get to the station and sort themselves out behind the air gates, the second train would’ve just finished being emptied and even though it doesn’t seem like much, it would speed up the boarding process immensely. 

[Gazza]

@Rivals Nah, needs to be groups of guests filling behind each gate as soon as the previous group have taken their seats. This probably means having a group waiting in the cave, which would actually be good because its an awesome space you want to spend more time in.

The station should have dots on the floor like Arkham used to have, so you should be able to have 2 guests for each gate plus 2 behind them against the wall.

[New display name]

If SW did that @Gazzathe 2 groups could have the show played at the same time and would only have to pause the train every second load.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

15 hours ago, New display name said:

If SW did that @Gazzathe 2 groups could have the show played at the same time and would only have to pause the train every second load.

Do that, but just create more show scenes that are looped, so you've got less chance of seeing the same thing more than once, but it never really feels like it's "finished". You don't even need more dialog - just pad the existing ones out with even more swimming from one side to the other, punctuated with growls and such.

[New display name]

I hope it does not end up like superman where 20 years later we still have the same problems. I’ve lost track of how many times you jump in SM queue, and you think, great this will be quick and an hour latter you get to the station.

[GoGoBoy]

Absolutely excellent article, as always. Let's hope this experience doesn't put VRTP off their new-found (or maybe that should be rediscovered) interest in heavy theming and show scenes for attractions. I always thought it was strange when we heard murmurs a while back that there would be some sort of show scene in the station. By all means, theme the station well, but show elements should really happen on the ride itself. As the article suggests, the best place would have been at the start of the ride between the station and lift hill. But it sounds like the idea to give it great theming was decided upon after the coaster had already been purchased and layout determined, meaning there was no opportunity for Gravity Group to design a section of track which would have allowed for a dark ride component